Last night was another adventure in Hog Hunting for me. I had a client and his father drive 31/2 hours to come hunt after a last minute cancellation left me with nobody on the books. The guy called me at 4:00pm yesterday and asked if I had an opening for that night, which much to their surprise I did. They were in their car at 6:00 and in Stockdale by 9:30pm, where we met them and went through our safety briefing and orientation to the procedures with the Dogs and Knives.

Our fist few places that we hit were busts, but the night was incredible!! The moonrise was at about 4:00am so it was a very dark clear night, and the stars and haze of the Milky Way kept us company as we watched the four legged hog machines work. We switched to yet another venue in our search at about midnight, and went to the field that we lost the MONSTER hog in with the bachelor party. The hay had been recently bailed so we were skeptical about striking on pigs, but sure enough when we got to the corner of the field where we saw the bad boy last time, Ringo picked his nose up into the air and took off through the fence into the river bottom. Buddy, Red and Rocky quickly followed suit while Duke (the 9mo Rhodesian Ridge Back who was on one of his first hunts) ran in circles trying to figure out what was going on. We cut the truck motor and listened to the silence that enveloped the night.

We waited for quite a while and were loosing hope when Ringo's deep bass bay cut through the brush and hit our ears. He wasn't far, but the strange way the call echoed told us he was in a creek bed or other depression. Ringo is a fantastic dog capable of baying pig by himself, which he commonly does, and is responsible for the vast majority of the pigs that we start. We waited to move away from the trucks and let the catch dogs go in order to let the other three bay dogs arrive and help Ringo hold the pig in one place. It wasn't long before we heard Buddy and Rocky Bay, so we let the catch dogs go and headed across the fence.

This is where we hit a snag! As we were crossing the fence my client fell and sprained his knee, and the dogs all quit barking at once signaling that the pig had broken away and was on the move again. This was a bad ordeal because we were down by a river, we had already let the catch dogs out and they can only run for a few hundred yards before tiring, and I had to take the client back to the truck as he could no longer continue.

The woods remained silent and after a half an hour the dogs started to come back in drenched and muddy from being in the river, but no worse for the ware. We had everyone except for Ringo and Red (our old dog that is dead reliable on hogs, but is getting a little hard of hearing) and we were getting anxious to move on. After another half and hour Ringo came busting out of the woods and lept up into the bed of the truck and sat down between my legs. He was drenched and smelled like...well ... wet hunting dog.. and wanted nothing but a good scratch on his ears (which he got while he got me drenched and wagged his tail spraying water on everyone else). He is a very sweet dog and by far my favorite one of the pack, but not somebody you want to meet if you happen to resemble a few hundred pounds of bacon. Old red never came back in, and we feared for the worst about him, but a farmer called this morning to let us know that he had shown up on his doorstep... which is about 6 MILES from were we were hunting!!
The next stop was the watermelon patch, and this is where things really heated up. We made a circuit of the first patch with out getting anything except a very tasty watermelon to quench our hunger, it now being 2:00am and we were all hungry! We were going through a very barren 80acer section of the property between two melon fields when the dogs started acting crazy!! They were running at top speed about 80yards out in front of the truck making huge arch's back and forth occasionally splitting up and going all in different directions, and then reforming into one bunch. They looked like they were all chasing different rabbits at once, but Eddie (the head dog Honcho) said that they will do this if they hit a really hot sent trail and they cant figure out were it goes. They were all bunched up when Ringo threw on the brakes and made a 180 and took off to our right making a big arc around the truck to go back the way we had just come from. That dog was flying across the ground like a heat seeking missile, and I knew that he had it figured out. The other dogs continued their shenanigans for another half a min before streaking back the way that Ringo had gone.

Then we heard it.... Rigo's big bass ball just at the other end of the field where we had come from!! We flipped the truck around and sped across the field to the mouth of a arroyo (a narrow cut in the ground like a ditch formed by water erosion that was only 4ft across and 5ft deep). Ringo was still balling and the other dogs had joined in hemming the hog up in the end of the cut a mere 15yards from where we were in the truck.

We opened the box and the excited catch dogs pored out and across the short distance to the arroyo. When they hit the hog he didn't make a sound.....we knew then that this was one Bad Boy in that little ditch!! We got there and my client took one look and said, "I'm not getting in that ditch with that thing!!"

Fast action was the name of the game, and since there was only room for one I slid down the embankment solo with my knife. The hog felt me coming and as soon as I hit the ground he slammed his body into my legs and pinned me against the dirt wall I had just come down! It was then that I noticed he had one of the catch dogs legs in his mouth and was doing his best to remove it from her body! She is a tough cookie though, and just sank her teeth deeper into the side of his face refusing to let go. Everyone was hollering... Dogs were barking... But that big bastard hog didn't make one sound. Buddy had the presence of mind to come up and grab ahold of the pig's balls, which distracted him enough for me to push us to the other wall and get my K-Bar into action.

I got lucky and made good on my first attempt, but big pigs like this take a long time to bleed out. More stabs to the heart were not going to make much difference so I concentrated on trying to persuade him to let go of Shiela's leg. I grabbed a softball sized rock and bashed it down between his eyes with no result!! I am a pretty big guy (6'1" 210lbs) and I was amazed at the non reaction from the hog!! I gave him three more wallops with the rock before he finally let her leg go and succumbed to blood loss!!

He was down and he was mine!!! He is the biggest pig I have ever killed with knife or gun, but he is one I will never forget!" I am still amazed that Ringo was able to bring a hog that size to bay all by himself!!! The boar's three inch tusks were sharp as daggers, his reddish black hair was a course as an SOS pad, and his fighting shields were the most unbelievable thing I have ever seen grown by a living animal. I was tired, smelled of boar hog and blood, and ready for a beer!!! It took all 8 of us to drag him out of that arroyo, and five of us to put him on the back of the truck!! Check out the picture and you will see why we had such a hard time with this behemoth!!

Sadly, not all stories have happy endings. After we had put the hog on the tailgate I heard E.J. say, "Dad, Alex... you better get over here." Ringo had collapsed in the grass at the mouth of the arroyo and we could see blood pouring out of his chest. We rushed to him and removed his cut collar that protects his neck and tried to stymie the bleeding. Eddie said that he had heard him get hit by the hog, and from the sounds he made the hog had him pinned up against the wall and was shaking him. He had several deep lacerations and one ominous puncture wound where his neck meets his chest (just behind where his cut collar stops) that was poring blood. We put some blood stop powder on the wound and applied pressure to help stop the bleeding. It seemed that we had everything under control, but he was over heating as well. We cooled him off with water and took him home to make a better assessment of how bad his injuries were. He started to come around by the time we got home, and upon further investigation he seemed to be doing ok. He drank a little water and walked around...peed on a few bushes and then laid down by his dog house. While I was quartering the pig for the hunters he managed to knock the clot out of his neck and the bleeding resumed with increased vigor. We quickly discovered this and since he was slipping into shock we rushed him to the vet. Sadly, Ringo died at the vet's office at about 11:30am this morning. His jugular artery had been nicked by a tooth that had traveled much farther up into his neck than we had suspected, and he was bleeding internally much more that we could tell. He will be greatly missed.... not only for his superb hunting ability, but also for his superb friendship....

I was unable to get the pic link to work correctly, hopefully I can fix it tomorrow...

Well done.
Thanks for sharing this story. I know you miss your dog, but am sure you will find and train another.

Thanks for the interesting story ,though very sad to lose such a fine dog. The pictures ??

Good tale; sounds like an adrenaline-filled night for you guys. Sorry to hear about Ringo too. 8 of you to haul the beast out? Wow. We need pics!

exelent story sorry bout the dog.
i suppose they dont get big by being soft sounds like a tuff bastard
hows the catch dogs leg?
greg

I haven't been able to get my links to the picture to work... But a guy I know posted the Picture for me at the other forum I posted this story at. You can see the picture here..For reference I am 6'1" 210lbs

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/ubbthreads/showflat.ph...53238e17b5#Post87563

As far as the catch dog's foot goes, She is ok.. it was just a little sore for a day or two. I thought sure that hog had done some real dammage to her foot, but she is awefully tough.